


A Meeting of the Minds

by Sadbhyl



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-09
Updated: 2011-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  Sherlock isn’t the only freakish genius in the world.  He isn’t even the only one in southern England.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Meeting of the Minds

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the discovery of Lavinia Smith’s text on Sherlock’s bookshelf. It took forever to write, and surprisingly, the voice I had trouble with was Luke’s. Mucho kudos to mydeira for beta and encouragement.

“I don’t do your recruitment, Mycroft.”  Sherlock dropped the file on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch.  “Have one of your toadies look into it.  I’m busy.”

Mycroft didn’t flinch.  “You aren’t.  I already spoke to John, who informed me you wrapped up the counterfeit diamond case day before yesterday.”

Meaning John was probably hoping Mycroft would distract Sherlock before he started taking shots at the wall again.  “John isn’t privy to all my obligations.”

Mycroft’s expression said clearly what he thought of that lie.  “This is a delicate matter, Sherlock.  Too delicate for any of my _operatives_.”  He emphasized the last word in defense against Sherlock’s prior insult.

“What’s so special about him, then?”

“He’s a genius.”

Sherlock snorted.

Mycroft flipped the file open with the tip of his umbrella.  “IQ of 195, started Oxford a year early with four A levels.  He’s already showing up most of his tutors and he’s only been at the college six weeks.”  Mycroft leaned on the shaft, more for show than support.  “He doesn’t have many friends at university, although his teachers all describe him as a nice young man.  His closest ties seem to be his mother, a freelance journalist living in Ealing, and several schoolmates, one living in America and the others still living near his mother.”

“You seem to know quite a bit about him already.”  Sherlock resisted the urge to page through the file.  No point in letting Mycroft know he had piqued his interest.  “What do you want from me?”

“On paper, he’s too good to be true.  I want you to talk to him, sort fact from fiction.  And if he’s amenable, I want to offer him a job.”

“If he’s as smart as you say he is, he’ll turn you down flat.”

“Not everyone is as cynical about duty to country as you are, Sherlock.  Will you do it?”

Sherlock refused to give Mycroft the satisfaction of a direct answer.  “I’ll think about it.  Unless something more interesting comes up.”

Mycroft didn’t show his irritation.  “I look forward to it.  It might do you good to meet someone who is smarter than you for a change.”

“A higher IQ doesn’t make him smarter than me.”

Mycroft cocked an eyebrow.  “Talk to the boy, Sherlock.  That’s all I’m asking.”

He didn’t say good-bye and Sherlock didn’t see him out.  He waited until he heard the car door slam in the street below before pulling the file closer.

He was still studying it when John got home.  Hanging up his coat, John took in Sherlock’s abstracted expression and steepled fingers and came to the logical conclusion.  “New case?”

Sherlock rubbed his lips with the tips of his forefingers.  “New puzzle.”

“Has this puzzle got a name?”

Sherlock reached for his violin.  “Luke Smith.”

***

It would have made more sense to let John talk to the boy.  John was better at the social niceties, at making people comfortable.  But after memorizing the file, Sherlock found he had to meet this prodigy in person.

And Luke was a prodigy.  Straight A’s in school, full marks on his A levels, president of his school’s science and debate teams.  The file included three essays he had written for various prize competitions on subjects ranging from sustainable energy production to social justice issues.  All were well reasoned and maturely written, and all had taken first prize.

But there was still something not quite right.

Sherlock had had to read the essays three times to find it.  The boy was obviously an idealist, both from his choice of subject matter and the passion that was evident in each paper.  But whenever he tried to inject an emotional element into the argument, his rhetoric became uncertain, as though he had an imperfect understanding of how emotions worked and how to manipulate them.  An odd conundrum for someone so obviously guided by his heart.

His background was equally curious.  In the four years since his adoption, he had been a shining star, praised by teachers, friends, neighbors, even some shadowy members of the government.  It was no wonder Mycroft was interested in him.  His adoptive family seemed a perfect fit for him.  His mother, Sarah Jane Smith, was a freelance journalist specializing in unusual scientific phenomena.  And though the boy had never met her, his adoptive great aunt had been a pioneer in the field of virology.  Sherlock had a copy of her seminal text on his bookshelf from when he’d been researching the parameters of an anthrax attack on the city.  Taken all together, it was the perfect environment to nurture such genius.

Perhaps it was even enough to justify why, before the age of fourteen, the boy was wholly unremarkable.  His medical records, school reports, everything showed an average, unexceptional child until the age of fourteen.  Even his IQ shot up fifty points after his adoption.  So either someone was doing experiments on him with incredibly successful results, or someone was lying.

As always, Sherlock leaned towards the latter.

He needed better data, and the only way to get it was through personal observation.

Hunkered down in the last row of the lecture hall, Sherlock wrapped his coat around himself like a shield and watched the students file in.  He got looks from some of them, curiosity, mostly, but interest from a few of the young women.  He rolled his eyes.  Predictable.  For the most part, though, he was ignored, allowing him to observe freely.

Luke arrived early, not one of the first students but by no means the last.  He took a seat near the middle of the hall with a clear view of the lecturer.  Interested, then, but trying to avoid notice.  Not hiding at the back where he could claim attendance without having to actually pay attention, something Sherlock had done many times himself at school to avoid a tedious lecture.

And this was indeed tedious.  Physics was only of passing interest to Sherlock, unimportant beyond velocities and vectors.  But the lecturer, a Mr. Wardlow, seemed determined to drag it down to new lows, so Sherlock wasn’t surprised to see half the class nodding off in the first ten minutes.

Luke, on the other hand, was cribbing notes madly in two separate notebooks.  Taking notes for a friend?  No, there was no point in that when he could simply photocopy them after class.  But he kept glancing in his lap before scribbling on the second pad.  He was taking notes from another source.

Having the advantage of an unobstructed view, the lecturer figured it out at the same time Sherlock did.  Ignoring the girl two seats down obviously updating her Facebook page from her phone and the boy in front of Luke who was even more obviously asleep, Wardlow singled out Luke instead.  “Something more interesting, Mr. Smith?”

Luke’s head snapped up.  “No, sir.”

Wardlow snapped his fingers and held out his hand.  Reluctantly, Luke handed over the book he’d been reading.  Wardlow snapped it shut, but Sherlock was amused to see his eyes widen slightly as he read the title.  Not part of the course reading, then.  Wardlow refused to give ground, however.  “Perhaps you would like to review today’s material for the class, then.”

“Of course, sir.  The motion of a material body is produced by the action of externally applied forces which are assumed to be of two kinds: surface forces represented by Fc and body forces represented by Fb. Thus, the total force applied to a body or to a portion of the body can be expressed as F equals Fb plus Fc.”  Wardlow looked irritated that Luke was able to recite the lecture back with such precision in a much more concise manner than Wardlow had been.  But Luke continued.  “However, this is dependent on the body in question being solid.  It ignores the idea that all objects are made up of discrete, individual particles that have mass and velocity of their own.”

Wardlow cut him off.  “That’s not the subject of today’s lecture, Mr. Smith, and I suspect your classmates would appreciate it if you would stop wasting their time.  Now pay attention.”  He tossed the book back at Luke, who caught it after a brief fumble, and stalked back to the lectern to continue teaching.

Sherlock glanced around the room.  There were several of the sneers he was familiar with from his own school days, ones that would be followed by a roughly whispered “Freak” on the way out after class.  But there were more smiles, amusement that the class genius had shown up the dull teacher.  There hadn’t been many of those in Sherlock’s classes.  Possibly because he’d shown as much disdain for the other students as he had for the instructors.

The rest of the lecture passed uneventfully.  Luke limited himself to paying attention to the lecture, although Sherlock saw his fingers twitch occasionally, fighting the urge to reach for the book again.  When class let out, the Facebook girl stopped him to ask a question.  Not for study help, judging by the flush that crept up Luke’s neck.  A date, then. 

As the students filed out, Sherlock stepped in Luke’s path.  “What did he catch you reading?”

The boy was startled but didn’t seem threatened.  Instead, he pulled out the book and offered it to him.

“ _Quaternion Quantum Mechanics_.  Ambitious.”

“Tillingham’s basic premises aren’t too difficult, but I’m interested in how he manages to deal with the issues of noncommunicative values in relation to—”

He was interrupted by a muttered “Freak” from a passing student.  Sherlock glared, making the offender flinch in surprise and guilt.  When Sherlock turned back, Luke looked pleased.  “I’m sorry,” he apologized anyway.  “My friends always tell me I let my brain get away with my mouth.  I didn’t mean to keep you.”

“Not at all.  I’m actually here to see you.”  He offered his hand.  “Sherlock Holmes.”

Luke shifted his bag and took his hand.  “Are you some kind of investigator, Mr. Holmes?”

That surprised him.  “Why do you ask?”

Luke shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.  “I don’t know.  Lots of little things.”

“Such as?”  It suddenly seemed very important to hear the answer.

“Well.”  Luke thought for a moment before his eyes lit up with a small, pleased smile.  “You’ve got chemical burns on your fingers, but none on your clothes, and your suit’s too nice for a researcher anyway.  There are blood stains on your cuff, but I don’t see any cuts on you, so it’s someone else’s blood.”  Sherlock was impressed, but the boy kept going.  “Your shoes are worn, but mostly near the balls of your feet, so you do a lot of running.  Most scientists I know don’t do a lot of running, at least not in dress shoes, so it means you end up chasing things or running away from them unexpectedly.”  He paused as though thinking of someone else, maybe another scientist he knew who did do a lot of running.  Then he went on.  “You were here looking for me, but you haven’t asked me for anything, so someone told you about me, maybe asked you to find me?  The people you ask to find out about someone are either journalists, police or detectives. You aren’t a journalist, no ink marks, and if you were a police officer, you would have said so when you introduced yourself.  So you’re a detective of some sort.  What do you want with me?”

And just like that, Sherlock got a sense of what it must feel like for John whenever Sherlock reeled off his deductions, at the same time amazing and humbling.  He had never heard anyone put all the pieces together the way he did, had certainly never heard anyone read him.  It was rudimentary, true, but Luke was a physicist, not a detective.  If the boy was given a bit of guidance, Sherlock suspected he wouldn’t be the world’s only consulting detective any longer.  “That was amazing, Luke, very well done.  You’re absolutely right, I am a detective, and I have been sent to talk to you.  Just talk,” he held up his hands innocently when Luke turned defensive.

“About what?”  He was still cautious.

“About your future.”

****  
Luke had to consider the possibility that Mr. Holmes was an alien.

Mum would be disappointed in him for jumping to the least likely conclusion.  But in Luke’s short life, he’d learned it was better to over-guess and step back as the evidence presented itself than to get caught with his pants down.  Not that that didn’t happen often enough.  He’d known enough people who had seemed perfectly normal, only to have them unzip their foreheads or drop their pretense and reveal themselves to be not normal at all.

And Mr. Holmes didn’t seem all that normal to begin with.

It was more than his fair skin and pale, cat-slanted eyes.  He seemed uncomfortable, like his body didn’t fit him quite right, although he moved with a grace Luke had thought reserved for dancers.  Maybe it was the world that didn’t fit him right.  He held himself rigid all the time, as though he was waiting for a blow he couldn’t see coming.  But he seemed to see everything.  His eyes scanned the street, the building entrances, the storefronts, as though taking everything in.  Luke had never seen anyone else do that.  He could do it, of course, but he’d learned to shut it off to a certain extent.  Not completely, of course.  He always knew at a glance who was missing from lecture or if someone had borrowed a book off his shelf.  But he didn’t seek it out like Mr. Holmes did.  And since everyone thought Luke was weird, didn’t that apply equally to Mr. Holmes?

Holmes pulled out his smartphone as they stalked down the street at a pace Luke found hard to match even watching where he was going.  He grabbed the opportunity to flip out his tablet computer.  With a few quick strokes, he shot a two word message to Mr. Smith and slipped the tablet back in his bag.

It binged softly as they were standing in line.  If Mr. Holmes noticed, he didn’t look aside from his own phone as Luke pulled the computer back out and scanned the report, committing it to memory to pick it apart less conspicuously.  Three names in the known contacts list were bolded and red.  His throat tightened.

He didn’t speak much as they settled at a table in the back corner of the coffee shop, Luke with his triple mocha latte and Mr. Holmes with a milky chai.  After two months of living in the dorms, jammed together with dozens of other teenagers, Luke wasn’t used to so much quiet, especially not when Mr. Holmes had supposedly come wanting to speak to him.  Instead he seemed to be studying Luke the same way he’d been studying the street, picking apart every detail until Luke started to feel like he was naked.  He was just about to protest when Mr. Holmes finally spoke.  “Nice computer.  I didn’t realize that Myth had a tablet out already.”

“Oh, um, it’s a custom job.  I put it together myself from spare parts.”

“Interesting.  Not many people can create capacitive touchscreens in their basements.  I’m impressed.”

He’d learned a lot from his mother, and one thing she was good at was attacking when on the defensive.  “Not many people have a lending library card at St. Bartholomew’s morgue, either, Mr. Holmes.”

The man sat back, startled.

Luke took advantage of it.  “What do you want with me?”

Those pale, alien eyes studied him for long moments.  “You’re a mystery, Luke.”

Luke met his gaze with the laser focus Sarah Jane used so often.  “I’m not really.  I’m just a kid at school.”

Holmes’ lip curled into a smirk.  “No, you’re not.  You’re much more than that, aren’t you?”

“You think I’m a freak, don’t you?”  Luke grabbed his bag and stood up.

Holmes caught his wrist.  “No, Luke, I don’t think you’re a freak at all.  I think you’re…”  He hesitated, searching for the words.  “Extraordinary.  Quite extraordinary.”

Luke wanted to like this man, but suspicion ran too deep.  “I’ve talked with people in the police before, Mr. Holmes.  And the military.  I’m not interested in being one of their experiments.”

“No reason you should be.”  Holmes let him go, reaching for his tea.  “I certainly wouldn’t want to in similar circumstances.  Being on the other side of the microscope is…dull.”

Luke sank back into the chair.  “Then why are you here?”

“Because you’re a mystery, and I can’t resist a mystery.”  He went on despite Luke’s attempt to protest.  “No, you’re absolutely right, I was sent by…an acquaintance in the government to look into you, but he can go hang, and quite frankly if anyone from the government should offer you a job, you should tell them the same thing.  You and I, we’re meant for better things than nine to five and a corner office.”  He leaned forward, folding his long fingers together in front of him.  “But I want to understand you, Luke Smith.  Can I do that?”

Luke clutched at the strap of his bag.  “You can try.  But I don’t think you’ll have much luck.”

“You think so?  I’m really very good.”

“My friends know me better than anyone, and even they don’t understand me.  And they know things you wouldn’t even be able to guess.  Or wouldn’t believe if you could.”

“Try me.”

“I can’t, Mr. Holmes.  I’m sorry.  It’s not just for me.  Some of the things…  It would put other people in danger if you knew.  Or put you in danger.”

“I’m in danger quite a lot.”

“Not like this.”

Holmes leaned back in his seat, rubbing his long fingers together thoughtfully.  “You aren’t discouraging me from this.”

“I know.  But now you know what’s involved.”

“The security of…” he hesitated, obviously trying to read something in him, “…the planet?”

Luke blanked his face, not wanting to show how close this man hit.  “If you like.  A friend of my mother’s likes to say that once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever’s left, no matter how unlikely, has to be true.”

Holmes raised an eyebrow.  “I think I might like this friend of your mother’s.”

“I think you would, too.”

“Any chance of meeting him?”

“I doubt it.  Even we don’t know when he’ll come to visit.”  It was tempting, though, to think of what this man and the Doctor would be like in a conversation.  Or a crisis.

“Your mother, then.”

“That really wouldn’t be a good idea.  Mum is even more protective of her privacy than I am, and she’s not always as nice about it.”

“Luke.”  Holmes didn’t touch him again, but the resonance of his voice stopped him just as surely.  “I have to solve this.  I have to understand.”

Luke hesitated.  He understood that feeling, that need to work out something that was a challenge.  “Mr. Holmes, some of the best things in the universe are mysteries.  That’s what makes them the best, the fact that we won’t ever understand and can only marvel at them.  I’m sorry.”

“I know what you get up to, you and your mother and your friends.”

If he did, Luke knew it was only in a general sense.  If he knew more than that, he’d be asking more pointed questions.  “We’re just helping.”

“I would like to help, too.  Sometime.”  He pulled out his wallet and handed Luke an ivory business card with his name, website address and telephone number on it.  “If you ever get in over your head.  Like I said, I am very good.”

He knew Mr. Holmes really just wanted another chance to learn their secrets, but Luke couldn’t blame him.  “Thank you.  I should say the same.  If you ever run into anything too…odd to handle, call us.”

“There isn’t much I can’t handle.”

“Trust me, Mr. Holmes.  If you run into something of ours, you’ll know it.  Thanks for the coffee.”

“You’re welcome.  And Luke.”  Luke hesitated.  “It’s Sherlock, please.”

“Sherlock.  Thank you.  It was nice to meet you.”  Surprisingly, it was.

He was halfway back to campus when his mobile rang with his mother’s familiar ring tone.  “Hi, Mum.”

“Luke!  Oh, thank goodness.”  She sounded genuinely relieved.  “I just got back and Mr. Smith told me about your request.  Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.  We just talked.”

“Are you sure?  I’ve heard about this Sherlock Holmes.  He’s dangerous.”

“He’s fine, Mum.  He was just curious is all.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Don’t worry, I think I put him off with one of your ‘the universe is vast and impossible’ speeches and confused him.”

He could hear her smile over the phone.  “In other words, you were Luke.”

“Well, you’re always telling me to be myself.”

“And you do it magnificently.  As long as you’re sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine.  And you should meet him sometime.  He reminds me of someone you know.”

***  
John looked up from his computer when Sherlock came in.  “You’re back early.  Everything go all right?”

“Fine.”  Sherlock hung up his coat, thoughts still swirling around the enigma of Luke Smith.

“So, you solved your mystery, then?”

“No.”  He sank down onto the couch, already drifting into his thinking position.

“No?”  John was stunned.  “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Of course it’s possible, John.  Just not preferable.”

“I’ll have to add it to the list, then.”

“Hmm.”

It might have been a few minutes or a few hours when some of the pieces started slotting into place.  “John, do you believe in life on other worlds?”


End file.
